THEFT OF LESS THAN£20 (Hansard, 13 July 1977)

§ Mr. Abse
I beg to move, That the clause he read a Second time.

Mr, Deputy Speaker
With this new clause we may discuss Amendment No. 128.

§ Mr. Abse
Here again we are in exactly the same position as that which I sought to describe when we dealt with male importuning. The Government accepted a proposal that when it came to a theft of£20 or less, the maximum penalty should be reduced to three months' imprisonment.
At the same time, the original Bill stated that such an offence would not carry a right to trial by jury. That was recommended by the James Committee and accepted by the Government. They accepted the view that for a case of one offence of the value of£20 it is sufficient that there should be a penalty of three months imprisonment. They then changed their minds under pressure about the question of trial by jury, but what on earth has that to do with maximum penalty? Because they have given a right to trial by jury, why must they go back on the James Report or on what the Home Office recommended, namely that the penalty should be not more than three months?
I sometimes ask myself in what kind of wonderland the Home Office is living. Everyone knows the disgraceful conditions of our prisons, and our whole purpose and objective in applying our minds to the Bill should be to see how we can safely reduce the prison population.
3.45 a.m.
Having come to the conclusion that three months' imprisonment was enough, why does the Home Office not now take its original stand? Having decided to give trial by jury because this was insisted upon, why is it moving away from the James Committee's recommendation that three months' imprisonment is sufficient?
The Minister of State, Lord Harris, recently referred to conditions in which there are two and sometimes three men living in a cell, and said that this was "an affront to any civilised society".
What, therefore, is the sense in allowing the maximum penalty to continue, knowing that for some of these offences it could be five or 10 years? What is the logic in that?
667 It was Roy Jenkins who said that when the prison population of England and Wales topped 42,000 the prison system would "approach the intolerable". We have approached and passed the intolerable. But when it is open to us to reduce the numbers, we still go on piling up the maximum sentences, even though we have already timorously come to the conclusion that sentences could be safely reduced.
I agree entirely with what was said recently by the Director-General of the Prison Department—that there is no point in beating about the bush, because the prison system does not have the resources to deal properly with the number of people it is currently receiving. Some parts of the system are hard put to it to maintain reasonably civilised conditions". Judging by my visits to some prisons recently, civilised conditions do not exist. What possible arguments, therefore, can be used against reducing the three months' penalty? All the arguments that could be discovered were put fairly and frankly in the report of the James Committee, just as it also set out the arguments on the other side.
The James Committee indicated that there were bound to be some anomalies, whatever figure was decided, and that it was bound to be arbitrary. It acknowledged that it is possible to envisage two offences which are almost indentical in character but differ slightly in value, and that it may be thought unjust that a person convicted of the former offence would be liable to a maximum of 10 years while the person convicted of the latter offence would be liable to only three months. But the Committee was right in saying that these values were more theoretical than real.
It is true that any dividing line must result in borderline cases, but, as the Minister of State well knows, monetary value was used for many years to classify offences of larceny and malicious damage, and it is still used to classify offences of forgery. I am well aware from my own experience in the criminal courts that many anomalies of the kind that are often put forward do not arise in practice.
After all, value is used to distinguish thefts in the United States and in most of the States of Australia. Considering the arguments, and the deplorable conditions 668 in our prisons, any reasonable Home Office should be inciting Ministers to make three months the maximum penalties for these offences. Once the courts are left with options, too often the maximum is needlessly accepted and not the minimum. There should be a ceiling. This opportunity should be seized to reduce the number of people going to prison for longer than necessary.

§ Mr. John
Throughout our discussions on the Bill the Home Office and I have been seeking ways of reducing the categories of offenders liable to imprisonment. So a blanket criticism cannot be made.

§ Mr. Abse
I have made none.

§ Mr. John
My hon. Friend and I may disagree on particular matters, but the Government have tried to reduce the prison population.
As for the James Committee, we went down with all colours flying. We advocated a limitation on the trial of small thefts, but in another place and among small parties in this House it was represented to us that the seriousness of a conviction for larceny and its effect on character, irrespective of the amount onvolved, justified trial by jury.
The James Committee said that an offence should not be triable on indictment if the maximum penalty with within the power of the magistrates' court to impose. That means that certainly the maximum penalties should be aligned, whatever the value of the theft, if trial by jury is retained. I hope that condign punishment for theft of less than£20 would be awarded only in the most exceptional cases, but it is only the rare cases that would go to trial. Therefore, even on the James Report, we have been consistent whether or not that is what we would have wished to do originally.

§ Mr. Abse
The Home Office do not have the guts to ensure that the judges are limited as much as the magistrates' courts normally are. It is clear from the replies on this new clause and New Clause 19 that Ministers are not prepared to curb the maximum sentences available to judges in the higher court. It is unfortunate when they know it is not right and that there are provisions for multiple offences, as in the James Report and in the new clauses that I have put down, 669 to say that it is confined purely to the one single case of theft involving£20. It does not show a great deal of courage.
I willingly accept that the Home Office and the Minister have tried on many occasions en route during the course of this Bill, as pressures have grown inside the prisons, to reduce the prison population. But they have not seized all their opportunities, and in this case they have failed to take the most obvious opportunity of all.